Sakic helped the Colorado Avalanche win two Stanley Cup titles and is now the team's executive vice president of hockey operations. He also won titles at the Winter Olympics, world hockey championship, World Cup of Hockey and world juniors.

''To play for your country, I got a chance to play with Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, and I wouldn't have had that happen on my regular team,'' Sakic said. ''Any time you put the Canadian jersey on, you just felt something more and something special. The game just seemed to mean a little bit more. We never took that for granted.''

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